Yesterday, MIT Professor Ronald L. Rivest provided his analysis of Internet voting for military and overseas voters.The talk centered on the balance between risks and rewards of using Internet voting vs. paper ballots for military and overseas voting. You will find many of Ron’s slides entertaining, some a bit technical, yet all serious. The conclusions are straight-forward and convincing:

“The risks of “internet voting” more than negate any possible benefits from an increase in franchise.”

Google disclosed significant attacks on their servers and GMail, along with attacks on other corporations. They will change their policy limiting the freedom of Chinese citizens. Another demonstration that the risk to democracy posed by Internet voting is not just a possibility voiced by computer scientists and security experts.

Our concern is with the disconnect that has otherwise intelligent people concerned with cyber security based on strong evidence, coupled with the almost simultaneous support for voting by Internet, email, and fax.

Just a little reminder that we can have all the physical security, encryption, open source, and source disclosure in the world. Yet, there are still low tech ways to hack systems available to high school “D students”.

“There are many wrong ways to make this transition. If history is any indicator, unless a concerted effort is made to require proper protection, the new medical systems will be no better than the insecure voting machines that many states have purchased.”

Recently we were dissapointed when the Huffington Post ran a PR piece from Everyone Counts touting their risky election technology used in a Honolulu election. Now, Huffington Post has provided a platform for an expert technologist’s view.

Now, President Obama has formally recognized the risks and insecurity of the internet. Given that recognition, the incidents we see reported almost daily, and those viruses that occasionally hit our computers, on what basis can anyone support internet voting?